How Lighting Designers Can Defend Their Specifications — Michael P. Jennison LC IES LEED®

Hands-On Experience and the Confidence to Speak with Authority

Host: And so I think that's fantastic. Just being excited about that practical, hands-on aspect — that's something really unique to you and to a lot of people. You get your hands in it and you see how it affects people, and then you bring about the analytics or the energy savings, or you bring the conversation to the intangible a little bit more. Is that something you feel captures your experience as well?

Michael: I think so. Yeah. For me, it just gave me a deeper understanding of the things that I was working with, and it gave me the confidence to really speak to them in a way that I understood. It wasn't just limited to, "Oh, I read this, and the socket's supposed to screw in like that." There's a lot more to it. As many of you know, in the field there's the plan B — things aren't always as described. There's a certain discovery that happens in those moments in real life, regardless of what it is. So I found that part very exciting, and it gave me the confidence to be able to bring that excitement as well.

Because it's like many things in life: if you're not comfortable, if you're not confident, if you're not grounded in something, it's hard to really be an authority and to bring that confidence. Of course, there's that "fake it till you make it" sort of thing, but you have to have been there to speak with that authority.

Host: I think you bring up some really good points there, and you're giving us a really great picture of why you care so much about this work. I'd like to take a moment and see how that passion has perhaps collided with a real-world challenge in the field and see where that goes. And actually, to that point — Sarah, would you mind popping on and asking your question for us?

Discovering the Knowledge Gap Around WELL Concepts

Sarah: Yeah. Michael, thanks so much for doing this today.

Michael: Hi. Pleasure.

Sarah: I know in our conversations that you're working with Class A offices, luxury hotels, healthcare, schools, and more. And you've mentioned that a lot of people still don't fully understand WELL concepts or how to evaluate luminaires and controls. Can you share a specific moment when you first realized that gap in understanding, and how it was going to be a real problem for your projects?

Michael: Yeah. Anytime you introduce a new set of standards or certifications, there's a bit of a learning curve that happens in the field. There's also opportunity. You'll see different services emerge, and you'll see people operating as specialty consultants who find their way into projects. I think there's great value that new people and new things can bring to the equation. But like anything new, there's a curve — kind of like what I was talking about before, picking up the old books with all the different shapes of lamps in them. You have to really do research to understand something.

The hardest thing that maybe we're all finding today is just, where does the time come from to invest in understanding things, or even just making your own dinner? Let's be honest, with the demands of life. Life is just this constant battle between, where do I spend my time? I could do lots of things, but I have to be mindful of where I decide to spend it. And so for many people, that creates a knowledge gap. You have this knowledge gap and you're trying to decide where to spend your time.

Sarah: And that's the challenge you feel people face.

Michael: It could be, because it's not a lack of intelligence or good meaning. A lot of people want to be able to add value. They want to do a good job. Deep down, they want to be seen as somebody who adds value to whatever they're participating in.

Just to answer the question clearly: I remember we were evaluating some interior lighting solutions, and we were looking at unified glare rating — UGR. We were asked to comment on some luminaires, and we had some great solutions for this. I outlined them and I pointed out where the information we were being asked for could be found, because often you have to be prepared to do a lot of work to make things clear. Especially in our industry, the more that you invest upfront with the time — you think, "Hey, how do I want to be treated? How do I want somebody to communicate with me? How clear do I want someone to be?" And if the answer is very clear, then you need to invest that time upfront so that you allow people to answer their own questions immediately without the back and forth. If you can do those things well, people will recognize that and they'll come back to you with great frequency. But if you don't, then you leave that interpretation up to them — and now it's one of those time things again: how much time do I have?

Anyway, to get back to the point: we had shared some information and I made an explanation as to how I arrived at those solutions and whether or not they met the requirements — and they did. But what was happening was that information was being copied and pasted. It was going down through the channel and coming back, and the people handling the information just didn't understand what we were talking about. And these are people who are incredibly knowledgeable in so many different ways. It was just one of those things where I realized there's a great opportunity here, and it's so important that we be that knowledge source — be that authority, that we give them the confidence to be able to do these things effectively. Because there's an inherent risk anytime you share information without fully understanding it. You have to trust that the person providing that information is knowledgeable, has vetted that information, and can be trusted.

So I saw that — it was interesting for me, but it was also eye-opening, in the sense that here's a real reason why I need to make sure I understand this well, that I can speak to it, that I can add value beyond just, "Hey, I need an indirect linear." I wanted to provide more than that. And that's kind of the Omnilumen philosophy with the company that I work for, and much the same with the Illuminating Engineering Society. It's more than just a product, more than just an answer. There's more to it.

Why Lighting Is More Than Just a Product

Host: And being more than that — it's not just a product. Specifically, talk to me a little more about why lighting is more than just a product, especially when it comes to understanding these WELL concepts. More specifically, why is lighting not always understood at the level it needs to be, and why do people tend to just copy-paste that information as they pass it down the line?

Michael: It's a fascinating question. I've spent a lot of time thinking about these things. What I found — one of my mentors earlier in my career, I've lost touch with him now, and I hope he's doing well, and I hope maybe one day he watches this. His name is Jonathan Stalker, J.R. Stalker. He's a brilliant man, and I worked with him after the many years he spent at Osram Sylvania. One of the things he really made clear to me, and it becomes more and more clear, is that lighting is an experience in many ways. It's subjective in the sense that it's going to be different for all of us. There are going to be preferences — things that I like, things that you don't.

It's really hard to appreciate those values, or that experience, on paper, in a two-dimensional way. We do lots of things like lighting photometric studies, and we specify lighting all day long, and we do a lot with lighting design. But up until the ability to provide 3D renderings and things like that, the best you really had to evaluate a light source — or what it would be like to experience it — was taking a cut sheet, looking at the product aesthetically, and being like, "Okay." And then trying to imagine that luminaire in a ceiling or on a wall. And then, if you can do that successfully, trying to understand how to measure the light coming from it and understand how bright it's going to be, what the finish colors are, what color temperature you're going to use.

So I think there's a hesitation, because if you go too deep on some of these things — what I might love, you may not love at all. So it depends. I need to be mindful of how deeply we, or anyone, invests themselves if they're not super comfortable with it. This is just — we live and breathe lighting. So we understand it well, because that's our goal. If we can't do that one thing well, then what are we doing here? This is where storytelling is so important, and I think we perfect that as we go and get better at it, because we understand how important it is and how few people can do that effectively. I don't know if that answers your question fully, but —

Host: No, I think you're absolutely on there. This is where we get to dive in a little bit more. I want to stay with that tension for a moment, where you're starting to talk about why you're developing that story to defend your design. You have an imagined aesthetic that you're putting into the design, into the renderings, and then your clients or the people downstream may or may not understand the concept. I wonder what the value to that might be. But let's stay with how it goes from hands to hands — how the project starts to exchange hands as we go into implementation.

Designing With Intention Across Layers of a Project

Michael: It's such a great question, because I'll tell you straight up: I deal with this almost every day, in one way, shape, or form. Really, what we want people to understand is that we're designing with intention. We're doing things for a purpose. There's a reason why we selected something. There are inputs going into why we arrived at a solution. It's not like I woke up this morning and thought, "You know what, I just want this job to be as expensive as possible, so I'm going to throw everything at the wall and hope there's a sucker on the other end with an unlimited budget and a blank check who just wants to say yes to everything I say." That's not the world we live in. And it depends on who you are and how you see things.

There are so many different levels in lighting. There are layers, obviously. You have a client who wants to build a building, and they'll hire an architect. That architect will be responsible for delivering that solution at a high level, managing the project and overseeing all the different subtrades. They'll hire their engineers and all the other specialty consultants to be able to do that, and those specialty consultants will work on that limited scope of work that they've been asked to do or specialize in. In our case, it would be the electrical engineer in most cases — sometimes also a lighting designer, if you're fortunate and the project's got a good budget and lighting is meaningful to a client. So we'll work with the client, with the architect, with the engineer to fill out what they want to see.

A lot of times they don't really know what they want. They just know they want something nice. So our job a lot of times is to figure out: okay, what does "nice" mean?

Host: What does "nice" mean in this case? So the value you're bringing is the aesthetics and design, and you're hitting the requirements — but maybe take half a step back. Lighting does a lot for everyone, not just making the space beautiful. Do you take other lenses? Do you think about what lighting can do to help the people in the space as well — or what sort of requirements are you trying to inject when you're looking at designing for a space?

Lighting for People: Comfort, Task, and Circadian Health

Michael: Well, I'll see if I can weave this in a way that answers the original question and is thoughtful in that way too. A good designer — and I don't claim to be a designer, I'm a humble servant of the lighting community. I'm trying to help people. I'm not looking for praise, I'm not looking for any credit. My "job well done" is when our partners look good: that the engineers look good, the consultant looks good, that the client feels happy. It has nothing to do with Mike Jennison's feelings or necessarily Omnilumen's performance. I just want to make that clear, because there are no ulterior motives. The motive for me is to do a good job, and to rest in that, and to feel good, confident, and at peace with that. There is no other motivating factor for me personally.

So when we approach lighting, we try to approach it based on my own experiences — even just being a father or a homeowner myself. I want something that looks nice, but that feels good, that respects me in the space, that allows me to have a comfortable experience. Something that makes me feel comfortable so I'm not in a rush to leave or go somewhere else, that allows me to focus on the task I need to perform. Obviously, in a building, we design with task in mind and the application that we're looking at. It's really important. It's not a one-size-fits-all, and there are a lot of people who try to do that, and again, it's just due to a lack of time. Sometimes you'll see a floor plate — a massive floor plate, 25,000 square feet, 20 or 30 different room types — and everything's got the same 2x2 ceiling using a 2-by-2 flat panel or whatever. You see that and you understand how that was done. You don't think, "Oh, this person was evil, they hate people." No, they don't. They're just dealing with the inputs they have, which are limited. A lot of times the client — we ask these questions, and it's not like they say, "What would you like to see here? What do you want to do?" They say, "I don't know, I just want it to look okay." So there are different ways of approaching that.

Going back to the "extras" — a lot of times we'll say these things are important. Start off with feeling good, not falling asleep at your desk, not wanting to find an excuse to leave. You want it to feel comfortable, and circadian lighting definitely addresses that. Things like tunable white, daylight harvesting — all these dynamic technologies and solutions come together to provide an environment that's not static, that's not fixed and one-size-fits-all, like, "Here's your one-size-fits-all cap, wear it and shut up." You have a feeling that the solution is bespoke to you. I like these things, and I think many people like them as well.

I just find that sometimes — in my experience on many projects — even when we've done all the budgeting correctly, we've engaged the stakeholders, and the client wants the tunable white, or they want the circadian entrainment, or they want the daylight harvesting simply because daylight harvesting is code, there are still a lot of people saying, "You don't need that. You don't need to spend that extra money." And unfortunately, when a client believes or trusts in other stakeholders — and in many cases, contractors hold a huge power in these projects, because they're the ones providing the price at the end of the day. So they have the power, whether they know it or not. Any good contractor probably should know that they do control a huge part of this. But they also need to be onside with the goals that might have been discussed at the onset of the project. There are some cases where some people have their own agendas, and they want to highlight their own value, and it might just be something completely different than what we're trying to do. They might be looking at it where they believe they're very good at finding value for their clients, and they believe that their clients believe that.

Value Engineering and the Hidden Trade-Offs

Michael: The thing is, we see many cases where they say, "You don't need that architectural linear product. We could go with a product that is a quarter of the price." Or, "You don't need that recessed downlight, I've got one that's a quarter of the price." But there's often a big trade-off — and the client doesn't understand the trade-off. They don't understand the difference.

Just for illustration purposes: a recessed downlight, what people normally call a pot light. There are different regress depths from a source. Think of the source as the piece that's providing the light, and you've got the reflector baked in, and you've got the light coming down from the top. The closer that source is to the ceiling line, the more glary, the more intrusive you're going to find that lighting. There's so much that goes into this. I know we don't have all day, but there are certain reflectors and optics, and so many different things that come into that solution. What a lot of people are trying to do is find value in other ways to differentiate themselves from their competition. Often, in this day and age, where people are so motivated by and aware of cost pressures, they're just looking for the saving. But in the savings, they give up a lot — and sometimes they give it up and don't even really know what they've given up until it's too late.

What do you think?

Host: What do you think they're not seeing about that value? We've talked about a lot of these extras — tunable white, circadian rhythm, all these different things that get you the whole picture. More specifically, what value do you think they're missing in all of that?

Michael: I think it's one of those things where, based on our own experience, a lot of people are very concerned with the upfront overall cost of the project. And it's difficult, because — I don't blame them at all. We live in a really interesting time where we're trying to make a case from the human element of lighting, rethinking how we design and how we live and experience spaces. We're trying to change a big ship, and it takes time to do that. But you can have tremendous impact just with a small rudder. You could steer a massive ship just by making a small change, but it doesn't happen immediately.

We live in this time where there's tremendous opportunity for education with respect to lighting, and the benefits of things like circadian and tunable white. But there are all these hesitations that come up. Sometimes, from a building owner or client standpoint, they could say, "Well, lighting is so personal. It's a personal experience." It's kind of hard to say, "At this time of day, we're going to have the lighting be blue, and at other times it's going to be orange." Those are terrible terms to describe it, but people fight these things. There are a lot of people who would get up from their desk and not even know why they're upset, but they notice that the lighting is different — and that's an opportunity for me to strike. I don't want to sound so terrible, but this is just the world we live in.

Host: No worries. I've walked across engineering floors as well, and you go by all these rows of desks and you see fabric filters across all the lights — they've essentially overridden anything the engineers or the designers of the space intended, or they've enhanced it, realizing there hasn't been much thought put to it. So that's some of the stuff they might be missing. What do you think you are specifically trying to deliver? Based off your requirements, what do you want them to experience in that space?

Michael: This is why it's hard to design for a one-size-fits-all to keep people happy. Anytime we're dealing with lots of people and large spaces, we're dealing with many different things that people are going to find important. It's going to be hard to please everybody. What we try to do is provide a high-quality lighting solution in a way that the majority of people will appreciate — and that they'll recognize allows them to do what they need to do, in a way that's mindful of them. Now, that's a very general way to put it.

Putting a Number on Defended Specifications

Host: I love that. Let's help — something we're going to get back to in all of this is that one of our team members ran the numbers across one of the types of projects that you tend to work on, just to see what happens when some of those extras that you've expertly highlighted are protected instead of cut, and they stay in the process of getting built. Troy, do you want to share your question with us? Because you've got a great point on this.

Host: Hi, Troy.

Troy: Hey, Michael. How are you doing? And, as everybody, thank you for giving us your time today. So we're going to put up a slide — Chris, follow me. There we go. Michael, I want to give you a minute, because when we ran a Class A — oh, let me back up. I always forget to introduce myself. Troy Martin. I am the CFO and general counsel for Earthlight. I'm the typical numbers guy, so I've got a pretty good idea of how people tend to look at these things as opposed to what is really going on. I want to give you a minute just to consume the slide that's in front of you, and you tell me when you're ready, and then I'm going to ask you a couple of questions.

Michael: Sure. It's a pleasure to meet you, Troy. Thank you.

Host: And maybe we can guide you through a couple of highlights on there as well.

Troy: Absolutely. So what we're doing on this slide: on the left, we say, okay, it's a Class A facility, there are 100 people, and the cost of the solution — using round numbers — is 100 grand. Most CFO types are going to look at that and say, "Well, if option A is 100 grand, and you used the number earlier where you said I can get it for 25% of that, why wouldn't I go do that?" Most people are going to go for the lower-cost alternative.

What Earthlight is bringing to the universe, so to speak, is: what is the cost of that decision? Look at the top right — 158,000 per year. So we're talking a million-dollar decision. Just assume these lights are in place for seven years. Maybe it's 10, and it's a million and a half. So that $75,000 decision that somebody makes today is costing them upwards of a million dollars of human value and productivity. Yet all of that is spelled out, and you said it earlier, or somebody did: falling asleep at their desk, they're mad and they don't know why. And it's all because light impacts health. Light impacts productivity.

The point of this slide, and what the solution is bringing to bear, is taking proven science into the built environment and putting it in the hands of the architects, the designers, the engineers, the contractors, and the owners, so that they're looking at the right numbers. I've described it in other conversations as a paradigm shift — how you think about it today versus how you truly should be thinking about it. And until you put numbers in front of people, they just don't get it.

Host: I just was thinking — I'm sorry, I just was thinking about people wondering why they're angry. I think we have to say we've normalized this for average coffee consumption throughout all this. Everybody's got that taken out of the equation and is just looking at the dollars now, right? But throughout all this — I think there's a question you wanted to gear back toward Michael here as well.

Troy: Yeah. It's almost like — Michael, when you think about this type of solution being available in the hands of the designers and the engineers, what do you think this would be worth? What do you think somebody would be willing to pay to have this type of information at their fingertips, such that when they go into that conversation, when they get value engineered out, they have better information? They have the basis for an argument that puts them in a better position to preserve what they find worthwhile.

Michael: It's a great question. It's something to really think about. It's almost like something you want to frame to someone else: what is it worth? What is it worth to you, giving up these things? I love the question. It's really hard to put a dollar value on something when it's like, what is your health worth to you? How do you put a dollar value on it?

I think it's about going back to the opportunity that I mentioned — being in an interesting place where we actually have tools and science and equipment and technology to solve some of these problems. There's a great opportunity here to educate people that it's actually possible to do these things, and that we also have to be able to demonstrate to them in a way that's beyond a reasonable doubt that these are truthful statements, that these are real expectations you can have, that are tested, that stand up to the scientific method.

So these tools are powerful, because they equip people to be able to have a rebuttal when these things might start to go away, when they start to slip and you can see it. Everyone's been here. I've been in so many projects where I know exactly what it looks like when things are going good, and you know exactly the questions that are asked. So sometimes it's not so much what you hear — it's what you don't.